A number of ambigrams from Michigan State University professor Punya Mishra have been featured on An Optical Illusion in the past. I just discovered a short video that he created at the end of last year wishing everyone an outstanding 2013. In the video, he uses a bit of anamorphic trickery to fool the viewers […]

Some of the best ambigrams deal with words that have some sort of polarity to them. Two perfect examples of this would be the words good/evil and love/hate. These designs are inherently more meaningful than those that would present two words completely unrelated to one another. The example below, created by Michigan State University professor […]

The left and right side of this ambigram designed by Punya Mishra are mirror images of each other. While the design itself is very simple, it is a remarkable example of a mirror ambigram. When asked about the design, Punya Mishra offered the following: “I like the manner in which the same shape is read […]

When you look at the following ambigram, do you first see FACT or FICTION? Or do you see another word? Oftentimes, it seems like the two are indistinguishable. The designer of this work, Michigan State University professor Punya Mishra, ponders: “The question is… is that fact and fiction or is it making a meta statement […]

Two words with opposite meanings coexist in the same space in the following ambigram from Michigan State University professor Punya Mishra. Do you see both interpretations? This type of image is known as figure-ground ambigram. The concept of figure-ground refers to the cognitive ability to separate and process an image based on contrast (such as […]